Cast Shield when she powers up Ghostly Force. If you don't have Shield, you're not ready for the confrontation.
Also, you can't get a game over, so if you are defeated, just try again the next day trying another tactic. Or load a save...
But if the game frustrates you so much, maybe you better play something else.
I beat the fight eventually. I still don’t have the shield spell (and honestly no idea how to get it) but it seems very strange that the boss fight for this mission is so ridiculously difficult that you need to be a high level to do it when the mission is one of the first ones you are given. And it’s weirder because you have to do a second boss fight almost immediately after that is significantly easier.
As it was I was unable to level up again before this fight because I’d done all the quests I could find and the only options were to study the book every day for a tiny amount of xp or join in on a hunt seems to give you a random encounter, many of which you simply aren’t levelled for.
Even at level 5 there is an encounter with 3 bandits you just can’t beat because they spam a smoke grenade attack that makes them impossible to hit and if you lose they steal all your gold, so I just stopped doing the hunts and am hoping there aren’t any other quests attatched to them.
the not being killed thing is imo even more punishing than just dying, if you lose a fight you’re stranded in the forest with no hp until you’ve learned the recall spell, even then you can only use recall if you have quite a bit of mana remaining after the fight. you either waste a lot of time running back to the villiage hoping you can dodge all the enemies or waste a very expensive potion.
the game isn’t terrible, but combat is a massive pain point, kro has very little health even at level 5 and almost every enemy hits like an absolute truck. It makes experimentation difficult because every fight is very hard, and it discourages exploration because I don’t want to wander halfway across the map then lose and waste half an hour trying to get back without triggering an encounter.
the game does have some enjoyable stuff, the art is fantastic and I do like how organically you learn new magic skills and how gaining reputation and experience works. I do los like the quests, though I wish the log gave you a little more help like telling you which quests you’re unable to complete because it relies on another quest to be done first. But the combat is just bad, sorry there’s just no other way to Say it.